


Double Jeopardy

by tBrilli4ntD4rkness



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Ashen Romance | Auspistice, Caliginous Crush, Caliginous Romance | Kismesis, Canon Compliant, Everyone is an idiot as usual, Flushed Romance | Matesprits, Gay chicken: troll version, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Or at least that's what I'm calling it based on implied ships, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Quadrant Confusion, Quadrant Smearing, They have skype because why not - should be able to do Something with that troll watching tech, and others - Freeform, meteorfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-24
Updated: 2020-06-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:53:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24517969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tBrilli4ntD4rkness/pseuds/tBrilli4ntD4rkness
Summary: Sometimes having a four-square romance system backfires, like when you're four times as likely to be interrogated about your potential crushes and romantic meddling.Or: In which Dave figures out how to play the ultimate one-sided game of "no-homo", Karkat falls for it every time, and neither of them question whether or not the other is(n't) bluffing.
Relationships: Dave Strider & Karkat Vantas, Dave Strider/Karkat Vantas, John Egbert & Karkat Vantas
Comments: 4
Kudos: 65





	Double Jeopardy

**Author's Note:**

> This goes into the 'shower-thoughts' category. The instant I had this idea, I knew I had to write it, but it took a lot of head-spinning-in-circles to figure out who's POV would be best. John or Karkat, maybe Dave; I even considered Eridan at one point.
> 
> It ended up not being like I planned, but you know what, I think it's better. ;)

It had been quiet in the control room for a few minutes, comfortable silence between two people who were happy to see each other and were figuring out how to act around each other and people in general again, when Egbert interrupted with a stupid question, because of course he did.

"Karkat? Do you still have a troll, um, romance thing for me?" John's eyes were literally everywhere except Karkat's face, skipping around the room visible through the screen like they're on ice.

Karkat sighed heavily. "Are you serious? 'Romance thing'? It's called a crush, John. And no, I don't have one; my caliginous feelings for you evaporated a very long time ago." It had been longer still, considering that a full sweep had passed since their journey through the Furthest Ring began. Rose had started marking off the human weeks to help pass the time early on, and apparently the count was just under a human 'year' at the moment.

"Oh, that's a relief!" John exclaimed, immediately returned to his typical bright expression. "I was kind of worried that our friendship would suffer or something, 'cause I didn't reciprocate."

"Big word, don't hurt yourself," Karkat muttered darkly.

"Oh yeah, Jade likes to mumble to herself," John laughed, his buck teeth front and center.

Actually, for all Jade's scientific knowledge, Karkat hadn't been aware she'd picked up a dictionary either, but whatever.

"Well you know, it's not as if there's a long line of amical replacements waiting for me to boot your ridiculous ass out the door and try again. If there was, I wouldn't be sitting here on a meteor with three of the most batshit insane people ever to exist, waiting for the day they all try to kill each other instead of doing anything remotely useful."

John grinned, unfazed. "Aww, that's sweet of you, Karkat. See, you _do_ care, just like we keep trying to tell you!" Before Karkat could wind himself up to properly react to that statement, John's eyes gained a mischievous glint and he looked thoroughly full of himself as he said, "Soo, Terezi tells me that anyone with a couple of working senses can tell there's something going on between you and Dave."

"First of all, your informant is one of those batshit insane people I mentioned literally less than a minute ago. Second of all, the two of you together couldn't auspisticise a pair of flea-infested hoofbeasts in mating season, so don't insult your meager intelligence by trying." Karkat ticked up an accusing finger for each of his points. "Third of all, what happened to your 'I'm not human gay' Egbertian shtick from a couple sweeps ago?"

John was practically luminescent, between his teeth, his eyes, and his general happy wind phasing. "I said _I'm_ not gay, Karkat, but that doesn't mean I have to be a old-Earth stick in the mud about my friends. I think it's great that Rose and Kanaya are together, and I fully support you and Terezi in your troll bi thing." At least he had the wherewithal not to mention the clown in the tunnels. "And I trust Terezi's nose to tell me something fishy - buzzy? - is going on."

"I am SO infinitely glad that we have that cleared up. There's absolutely no way in paradox space that I could care less about your earth-shattering revelations." Karkat's voice was as scathing as he could make it as he attempted to overthrow the red rising to the surface of his grey skin. "I suppose you've used your onhand precise sniffer to x-ray through Strider's miasma of misdirection as well, and have turned up with the answer to the universe's question on that?"

"Eh," John flipped his hand, grin still full-wattage maniac. "I don't claim to know what's going on inside Dave's head, what with his irony and all, but looking back through our old chat logs it could be a situation of 'the lady doth protest too much'." And then, damn him, he _wink_ ed.

Karkat was done. "How the ever-loving hell do you even know troll Shakespeare? You're a heathen to fine literature! And don't tell me it's one of your human memes, you're walking the edge as it is, Egbert. I'm not even going to ask about those chat logs - you see, this is me. Not asking." He was silent for a long few seconds just to prove his point, but continued when John opened his mouth. "I'll say this once and once only, and if this ever comes up again, I'll just break the connection and walk the hell away and you can roil in the guilt that it was all your fault that you'll never talk to anyone on this meteor again. So perk your aural nubs Egbert, and let this sink in: There is absolutely nothing happening between me and that idiot Strider." And just because grammar proved it, he made sure to toss the offensive surname to the end of his sentence instead of adhering to polite English customs.

To his credit, John managed a full five seconds of intently reading Karkat's lips before his face crinkled like he was trying not to bust out laughing (again). "Alright, alright, you're a little ball of righteous defensive fury, I get it. Just, I dunno, you came on pretty strong with the whole hatemance thing with me too, so." He raised his hands as Karkat's scowl deepened and added, "That's all I'm gonna say on the matter, ok? Look at me, being a supporting bro and not tickling your comfort zones."

No doubt he'd be colluding with Terezi on the matter as soon as Karkat hung up.

Karkat reached out a clawed fingertip and aimed it at the power button of the transmitter, as clear a threat he could manage when he didn't want to actually break the machine - at least right now. Making it had been a joint project, since no one on the meteor had any particular technical expertise, and with a pile of assorted alchemized mechanical books and a lot of stolen luck, the carapacian technology the trolls had used to watch and interact with the four humans across their lives had been turned into a two-way audio-visual connection centered on the Prospitian ship. John took the hint, and true to his word, didn't _say_ anything about it for the rest of their conversation.

In the back of his thinkpan, Karkat was also relieved that John had brought up the whole pitch crush thing, so he could definitively refute it. The first video call that had connected had been awkward as hell as everyone remembered that there were in fact, other people out there besides the seven of them on the meteor - eight with the Mayor. It was good to get whatever they could out of the way, to better work through other awkwardness and frustrations. John was a still a friend, and one vital to winning this accursed game at last.

* * *

As frustrating as human quadrants could be, slippery and undefined as they were, at least it was a fairly simple process to let someone know your romantic intentions or lack thereof. One and done, you might even say. For the first time in his life, Karkat was beginning to wish . . well, for what he wasn't exactly sure. He'd never had much luck containing his feelings to one quadrant, no matter how much he idealized the starstruck romances of his homeworld's fiction. Did he wish the two systems of romance, human and troll, fused better? Or that trolls weren't end-of-the-world, last-two-people-left-in-existence, standing-on-one-leg-and-bleeding-out-but-still-fighting-to-the-death kind of stubborn when it came to never giving up on who they were courting for a particular quadrant, especially blackrom?

Or maybe it was that Dave emulated that same kind of stubbornness, being above and beyond levels of irritating and yet dancing out of the way of Karkat's returning jabs like a suicidal tightrope walker who ignored his own discomfort with an alarming case of tunnel vision, refusing to acknowledge the myriad trauma triggers he so obviously had. Then again, for lack of a better source, Karkat could always take his anger out on himself, for vacillating like a drunk scuttlebuggy driver swerving across the road from building pitch to immediate pale guilt when Dave would freeze after the wrong barb, clearly in repressed distress that Karkat couldn't help but hate him for and want to protect him from. It was hell. Absolute utter hell not helped at all by Dave's insistence that he wasn't human 'gay' and that these tense emotional reactions were just typical 'bros being bros' interactions.

"Hey," Dave said one night, right in the middle of the most pivotal scene in the romcom they were watching. Not that Karkat - or either of them - hadn't seen it six times already, since there wasn't much else to do, but it was the principle of the matter. "This isn't, like, a troll bromance thing for you, is it?"

His voice was the monotonous blank wall it was most of the time (although, slowly, over the course of the meteor journey, not all of it), and even with Karkat's learning to differentiate his nervous, serious signals from his general joking around, the troll couldn't tell the motivation behind the words.

"For the last time, this is a regular platonic friend/hatefriend activity. Are you going to keep asking me the same inane questions once a week until we both die of boredom, or are you pulling some Lalonde-level psychoanalysis about how long it takes for me to change my answer just to stop dealing with your idiocy? Is she going to visit me in my sleep if I do? Yes, there are still four lights on the ceiling, Dave. You'll be the first to notice if a fifth one appears, because it'll be hanging behind my head denoting me as the saint I am for dealing with your crap and somehow still being sane."

"Aw sweet, I got a Star Trek reference out of you. I knew watching Roddenberry's entire oeuvre was a failsafe payoff." Dave's tone had a hint of real humor to it, a touch of pride at this useless feat.

Despite himself, Karkat couldn't quite detest that he'd gotten the human to express an actual emotion, or the warm trickle that he could recognize it. "Don't get too smug with yourself, Strider. I only stayed because it's not like there's anything else to do around here, especially when neither of us sleep. Now all those gog-awful references are clogging my thinkpan and of course one's going to drop out every now and then. There's not a sieve strong enough to save me from the quagmire now."

Dave snorted lightly, as close to an actual chuckle as he'd ever come, and the two of them allowed themselves to be distracted from his initial remark by mutual stupidity and let extravagant metaphors fill the space. When Karkat finally kicked him off the couch to set up the next movie, knowing full well what he was invariably getting himself into and wanting the moment of sweet revenge anyway, Dave spent a little longer than necessary trying to wrestle back the pillow he'd been using. And maybe it was Karkat's pale-tinted imagination, but if Dave sat closer than he had before, and if his outstretched arm brushed Karkat's neck whenever he tossed his head back in exasperation, neither of them mentioned it.

* * *

"There's no way in hell I'm letting you build the town hall. Everything you touch is infected with terrible drawings and if you're amnesic enough to want proof just open your oculars towards the courthive. The only reason the Mayor hasn't put out a restraining order on you yet is because there's no functioning legal system from which to attain it!" He gesticulated wildly around Cantown, which did indeed sport red and blue chalk cartoon characters on every other surface.

"Speaking of Terezi," Dave fluidly interjected, "What's the deal with you turning up whenever we argue? Are you trying out that troll mediating thing you all get onto Kanaya about?"

Karkat's mouth closed with a snap. Of all the bizarre subject changes at all the most innocent times, and they hadn't even drifted onto one of Dave's outlawed subjects, the kind he jumped them off of at the first possible opportunity in the most contortionist of ways.

"What the-- no." Karkat spluttered, trying to form a coherent string of arguments. "The hell, Strider? I thought humans auspisticised for each other as commonly as breathing, given what friends and literal frenemies do for each other on the discount plots you call cinema."

"Since when did you start acknowledging the human way as being an actual option, Vantas?" The human shrugged. "Makes a guy suspicious about his bros."

Karkat glared at him thoughtfully. "Terezi mentioned it, didn't she? There's no way you, Dave I-can't-pronounce-moirail-correctly Strider, had the applicable brainpower to imagine anything as complex as auspisticism for longer than it takes for a mite to expel flatulence." Speaking of auspistices, the tealblood was certainly meddling herself.

"I'd say I'm hurt," Dave responded blithely, "But we both know how absol-hundred-percent-lutely relieved I am to not deal with those hangups rattling around my brain."

Oh, it was on.

Crossing his arms in a flash of confidence, Karkat had a second's debate over whether he really wanted to risk flogging the proverbial pachyderm so much that Dave decided it was better to hide out and not speak to him for a few weeks until the boredom grew too abysmal, but decided he was well and truly fed up with Dave's impudence, bringing up romance with impunity and unable to handle the same.

"If we're talking hangups," he began triumphantly.

The argument retraced familiar territory, human sexuality nonsense and troll quadrant logic - or visa versa as Dave insisted the two were - before diving off into unrelated topics, and it wasn't far into their heated discussion that Karkat ceased to concern himself with Dave overreacting and rushing away. Ten minutes later the two had retreated off the main boulevard of Cantown for more maneuvering room and to avoid toppling anything in their gesticulations. The Mayor had peeked in at one point to check on their progress and quickly left again. So far he hadn't returned with auspistice in tow.

"In order to properly diss my ill beats you have to listen to them first," Dave sneered. He was floating several inches to increase his vertical advantage, cape flared behind him as he leaned over Karkat, arm resting nonchalantly on the wall.

Refusing to be cowed, Karkat pulled himself to his full, if lesser, height and bared his teeth more firmly. "Last time I offered my sterling critique, you informed me of the location of the door and mumbled something about the sanctity of an artist's work zone without unwanted opinions."

"Your loss in bowing to the easy out, Vantas." Raised hands accompanied this remark, as though he was washing his hands of the matter.

"Well then, being so duly invited with no reason to refuse, the next time I won't." Karkat pressed his face closer into Dave's space and knew he had the upper hand when the other's jaw stiffened, eyebrows twitching slightly.

There was an intense moment of silence as the two stared each other down, or Karkat stared his reflection in Dave's shades down, anyway.

Unexpectedly, Dave poked him twice in the thorax. Thanks to the protective chitin plates beneath Karkat's skin and his solid stance, the gesture did little more than make him blink at the sudden contact, but he was caught off guard as Dave readied his rebuttal.

Instead, the human flipped back to their original topic. "This is all rather pitch of you isn't it?" At Karkat's apparent surprise - who would have guessed Dave Strider had paid attention for three seconds during one of Karkat's quadrant lectues long enough to hear a term and properly match it - Dave smirked wider than Karkat had seen in a very long time. The predatory expression sent a shiver down his posture pole. "Oh, _sorry_ to burst your soap bubble, I meant what a _scandalous_ troll hatemance this would be for you, wouldn't it?"

And gog, if Karkat didn't want to drag his claws down his back for that too-apt remark. It would have proved him right, however, and there was no way in all the SGRUB-induced hallucinations of hazy hells that Karkat was about to do _that_. He was loathe to admit it, but Dave had produced a very clever setup, where Karkat couldn't continue to escalate without detriment to himself. If only the human didn't have whatever miscellaneous gender issues he was dealing with, he'd be a frighteningly good (troll worthy) pitch partner.

The two stayed frozen in a losing conflict until small hands came to tug on their pantlegs, the Mayor drawn back in with the absence of their rising voices. Dave pulled back, smirking one last time, and allowed the little Dersite to lead him away. Karkat watched him go, the back of his pan contemplating what would have happened if he still kissed him, and only remembered to relax once the pair were out of sight of the block.

Karkat put a hand to his now-burning face, digging the claws into his tough skin as an anchor in the swirl of inwardly and outwardly directed negative emotions. Still, Dave hadn't once seemed uncertain in rising to Karkat's baits, or had hid it well if he did, so maybe, _maybe_ somewhere in the back of his repulsive human thinkpan he wasn't as ignorant as he could have been in all of this.

And (So) Karkat may have lost this battle, but there were still ways in which he could win the war.

* * *

It turned out that not only was Karkat up to bat (a human sport reference he still didn't understand) for the defense of all his quadrant crushes at all times, but he could be summoned for perjury on the matter as well. There were no rights of protection against self incrimination or double jeopardy to be had, nor to the right of sympathetic representation. The next time Dave saw fit to interrupt an otherwise minorly pleasant meeting with his asinine queries, both Rose and Terezi were in the room, and for all her dedication to justice the tealblood turned a blinder eye to the situation and simply walked out.

Albeit, not without tossing a teeth-aching grin their way, of course. Rose, too, smiled in her too-knowing way at Karkat in particular before she gathered her knitting supplies and absconded.

Karkat groaned long and loud and let his head fall onto the mealblock counter with a thump. "I understand that humans are a diurnal species, that out in space there is no such thing as a true sleeping schedule, and that you in particular are challenged by the societal concepts of mildly polite behavior, but could you find it in your thinning slip of a soul to not ask the universe's most grating and repetitive questions at far-too-early-in-the-non-nocturnal-awake-rotation in the evening?"

"You could have answered already in all those words, Karkles, but if a good ol'-fashioned rant is what it takes to wake you up for the day, I'm happy to oblige." Dave was far too cheerful with his cup of revolting bean swill in hand. " 'Cause I don't know about you, but all this daily/nightly domesticity seems hella pale to me, and I wouldn't want you to waste your monoralic behavior excuses if you don't need to."

Not bothering to lift his head, Karkat tersely replied, "There is no way I'm trying to decode that pristine example of verbal acrobatics right now. Do _you_ even know what you want? Because with that last sentence, the person who understands what's actually happening is not me."

Dave was quiet for longer than it usually took for him to formulate an appropriately snappy reply. A bit concerned, Karkat was ready to turn around and see if he'd successfully insulted the human for the moment or whether he had fallen back asleep on the table - something which had happened before, and Dave's casual lack of concern for his exposed, unconscious body made Karkat's bloodpusher pound with rosy indignation - when sudden contact made him jerk upright instead. Unperturbed, two arms used the shift in position to wrap better around him, and the bony jut of a mentum came to rest on his shoulder. What the--

Karkat turned his head in an effort to make sense of what was happening, but the flash of dim red and nearly colorless blonde hair - such an abhorrent, unnatural color on a species of dark-haired, grey-skinned trolls - only confirmed his bizarre hypothesis.

"Dave?" he asked, for once completely speechless. The human rarely initiated contact, and never so full-bodied as this. Karkat could recall on one hand the number panic-attack caused hugs the two of them had participated in.

There was no reply, except for Dave to nuzzle the back of his neck with his nose. Karkat about dropped the spoon he'd been holding onto right then and there. As it was, there was a clatter on the stone-metal floor a few seconds later. His mind rebelled and took up arms in internal war: Dave's teeth could be at his throat in a moment, and yet he wouldn't think to do that because they were blunt and he was human; there was no way in his right mind Karkat should be okay with this, certainly not with his ex-moirail out there somewhere, yet he felt inexplicably safe and natural in Dave's embrace; obviously Dave didn't read this as a troll would but as some human thing, and yet he'd never acted this flagrantly romantic before, so could it be--? (Karkat's pan still attributed the phrases 'acted this way' and 'done anything like this' to the situation, instead of the one he so criminally hoped for: 'Dave had never _been_ ')

"You're so tense," Dave said, practically next to his ear. And damn it, he had the audacity to sound worried, though whether that was nervousness for himself or concern for Karkat the troll didn't know.

One hand circled tighter to reach around to Karkat's back, pleasantly flush with his sweater and skin but not so much as to be trapping, and knuckles began to knead along his spine.

"Dave?" he asked hesitantly, not knowing whether it was better to shatter the spell now or later, or if that was something he wanted at all. "What are you doing?"

The hand stilled. Karkat's traitorous pan pointed out there were some sizable knots in his shoulders that he could stand to lose. "I don't know," the human admitted. "But I think I actually really like touching people and never realized it somehow."

Karkat's weak will to stall ebbed down to the nubbins as his bloodpusher melted in pity. It sort of clicked that Dave would be shockingly tactile; neither he nor his ectosister had shown any particular enthusiasm for it, but the Prospitians of their group definitely were and humans in general seemed to be a very soft, communal species. Karkat had put together his theories as to Dave's childhood experiences based on his reactions and things he'd let slip and his own research of careful questions directed at Rose and her books. He'd seen the hints of scars that Dave covered with long shirts, and sometimes he'd wondered if the human had more than his own, inflicted for the color of his blood.

Even trolls, as violent and territorial a species as they were, needed contact, care, and protection as grubs and after the squishy skin of their first molts hadn't hardened into protective layers of chitin and tough dermals yet, and before they had learned to defend themselves. Knowing that everything was out to cull you from the day you hatched was helpful, but not enough to survive by itself. There were reasons why young trolls were raised by lusii, and the social contact was part of it.

He'd been too lost in his piteous thoughts, though, and felt Dave's grip loosen as the human started to pull away. Karkat could imagine the mortification and fear at being so summarily rejected oh so well, having offered assistance too many times himself only to be told off for pale solicitation. And even though he'd been refused often enough by this human in particular that it shouldn't matter, not a one of the outer elder gods would convict him for callousness if he shoved him away right now, he didn't want Dave to feel that same pain, not now when he was finally trying.

Just as the arms left completely, murmured words of rushed apology forming on Dave's lips, Karkat twisted around and captured him in a firm, double armed hug, tilting his chin up to rest it on Dave's shoulder. "It's okay," he whispered, his voice too loud as always for the fragile moment. "I've wanted to hug you more often too."

Dave inhaled sharply and exhaled shakily, rewrapping them both in lanky limbs. Karkat had the feeling he was tearing up very quietly, more silent than anyone should have learned to cry, and let Dave have his privacy without confirming it. Maybe he'd always been trying to overcome his past, try for what he wanted, and now was able to get a little closer.

After several minutes of just standing there, clutching each other like the ignorant fools they were, Dave lifted a hand to Karkat's coarse-soft hair and cleared his throat.

"Does this mean . . " he trailed off, for once not finishing the statement. For once Karkat knew what he meant, what he really meant breathing in drowning hope, and wasn't irritated in the slightest.

"I don't know," he repeated. "But what do you think about snuggling on the couch later when we watch a movie?"

Dave made a slight sound in the back of his throat as he exhaled through his nose, and this close Karkat could recognize the tremours of sound that ran into his shoulder for what they were: the very soft sound of Dave's chuckle. "Hell yes. Let's cuddle like it's the end of the universe and then some, 'cause ya know that it is."

"I think we have a lot of time to make up for in this last half a sweep," Karkat agreed.

* * *

"So what do you think?" Dave asked teasingly, a hand on the back of Karkat's neck holding them close. "Does this fall under flushed behavior or do you need some more time to consider it?"

Karkat mustered a scowl at him but it was weak. "How are you so abrasively obtuse ninety-nine thousand percent of the time? Surely even in _your_ baffled pan, this kind of stupidity doesn't fall into any of the other quadrants we have each other in."

Dave laughed outright at that, quiet as always, his grin large enough to amplify the sound forever in Karkat's ears. "C'mon man, you can't cop out on answering me on this one. This is like, _the_ human quadrant that everyone moons about." His voice dropped as he continued, "Though I have to say - and don't you dare repeat this to anyone else, I'll deny it even after I'm dead - the other facets of humanity's swirling mess of emotion are pretty sweet, too."

"Anyone with half a thinkpan knows it already, Dave, but whatever." Karkat rolled his head along with his eyes, Dave's hand never letting go.

"So? For once, I was the first one to say it, couldn't let you have that quadruple pristine record, 'Kat."

"Yeah, yeah, I'm flushed for you too, you impossible idiot. And pale, and ashen, and pitch, just like you deserve - in all senses of the blighted word."

"Excellent," Dave stared straight into his candy reddening irises and kissed him again. " 'Cause the only reason the universe kept trying to kill us so much is because it was trying to prevent this aberrwonderful romance from happening."

"Shut up, you sap," Karkat tried and failed to growl.

"What happened to Karkat "Romcom" Vantas?" Dave searched his eyes again and then grinned, tossing his eyebrows twice. "Make me."

And in their pitch-pale-flushed-ashen way, he did.

**Author's Note:**

> Somewhat related, but not as a source of idea for this fic, is this hilarious tidbit between Dave and Karkat. I did end up adding the 'abrasively stupid' line after the fact, because it's just too good.  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGeALWRKBrk
> 
> Also, 'nonplussed' should abide by its original definition instead of this newfangled 'sudden surprise' business. Just know that for 'unperturbed' in the second to last section, this is what I wanted to use but assumed most people would take incorrectly.


End file.
